So the hatemail dubbed me THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!! (sic) So I will wear that with pride, cuntfuckers. It's like The Outlaw Josie Wales only better, right? I mean, did he have a fully capitalised THE, an extra-long dramatic pause, and two exclamation marks? No, he did not. Chickenshit.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Arguing With Geeks 5

The IDSISINT Fallacy — Often articulated in the form, “You’re reading too much into it,” the IDSISINT (or “I Don’t See It So It’s Not There”) Fallacy is an extension of the mistaken belief that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Here the mere inability to perceive evidence is equated with an actual absence and thereby becomes the basis of a stubborn insistence that an interpretation of a work utilising that evidence is simply wrong. This is most commonly employed in the defence of a beloved work under fire for subtextual dubiousness — for latent sexism, racism, homophobia or suchlike. Counter-arguments to the IDSISINT Fallacy are required to detail the weight of evidence, to demonstrate the link between evidence and interpretation (i.e. that these features are significant) but they are also required to prove the existence of the evidence itself (i.e. that these features are actually there). In doing so they may well run into an Inverse Excess/Inadequacy Threshold or an Argument By Insignification. Advocates of an interpretation should be aware, however, that entirely spurious accusations of an IDISISINT Fallacy are often unconscious manifestations of Sufficiency Threshold Differential Intolerance.